


The Sorrows of Josephine Potter

by Trixen



Category: Dawson's Creek
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:40:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4692413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixen/pseuds/Trixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-finale. As they anchor offshore in the South Pacific, Pacey Witter and Joey Potter learn that ghosts don't always fade away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sorrows of Josephine Potter

_If someone tells her it has all been a dream, she will not be surprised._  
  
+  
  
They sail into Opunohu Bay by the grace of the moon. The waters of the South Pacific are like calm hills of salt and they smell like the cabin after he’s fucked her in their bed. Joey stands on deck with the to-and-fro sway, balancing herself perfectly – a sand girl she is _not_ \-- and stares at the stars and the cliffs, the fish and the boat, reflected against the sky. Maybe tomorrow they will journey into Papeete and she will try some raw tuna and shop in the bazaars and maybe, just maybe he will _talk_ to her.   
  
“Pace?”   
  
No answer. Right. So she’s going to be punished for longer than an hour this time. Not that she doesn’t deserve it, but – what IS the harm of calling Dawson every once in a while? He is lonely out there in Hollywood, she knows he is, and if she can give him that feeling of home, she’ll do it. It’s better than thinking of other things. Her baby, like a little meteor. Jen, her body. Her Mom. Capeside. All the little daily agonies, adding up and up and up.  
  
“You called, Jo?”  
  
“Nice of you to show,” she says quietly. Bites back crueler words. “Can we talk?”  
  
“I don’t know, Jo. Can we?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I _mean_ , can we talk or do you have to clear it with Dawson first?”  
  
Her bitterness flares. “That is not fair.”  
  
“I’m fucking sick of talking about fair.” He chuckles briefly and she notices the beer bottle in his hand. He lifts it to his lips and takes a long drink. His throat works as he swallows and she feels another flare—but it is not bitterness. She hates it. How he has always been able to – disassemble her. “So let’s talk about something else. For starters, how _is_ our old friend Dawson?”  
  
Joey bites her bottom lip, blows fiercely through her nostrils. But she answers. “Homesick.”  
  
“Like you.”  
  
“No.”   
  
“Spare me the lies, would ya, Jo? I know my own girlfriend. And I know my oldest—friend.” He spits out the word, but he is still calmer than she is. “He still wants you, doesn’t he? Bastard doesn’t know when to give up. Or maybe that’s me. Should I concede the match, Jo? Are you going to run back and—“  
  
“Stop—just _stop_.” She lays her left hand on his shoulder, wishes she could make him sit down. One fierce pitch of the waves and he will go into the sea. “It’s not—you know it’s not. I don’t love Dawson that way. But he’s part of my past—of _our_ past, Pacey. We can’t write him out of it just because I dated him once or twice.”  
  
“Maybe you should write me out then,” he laughs and goes below decks, sipping his beer and whistling a nameless tune.   
  
+  
  
 _If someone were to say to her, “It has all been a dream, Josephine. A dream,” she would not be shocked or appalled. She would say, “Oh, of course. Thank you for telling me.” Because really, when she is thousands of miles from Capeside, on a boat purchased by her teenage lover—life is a little surreal. Jen is dead and Dawson is in Los Angeles and Doug and Jack are living TOGETHER and their childhood is slipping away much, much too quickly. Her powers of deduction have not lessened. She knows she is being shut from her past, slowly excised from it like a splinter from a wound.  
  
She knows that she has not stopped mourning.  
  
But neither has he.   
  
And they are both lying to each other. _  
  
+  
  
She finds him in the galley, struggling to open a bottle of wine.   
  
“Let me,” she says softly.  
  
He shrugs. “I don’t need your help, Jo. Nor did I ask for it.”  
  
“Right. Because bottles open themselves. Stop being so stubborn, Pacey. We’re still—“  
  
“Still what?”  
  
“Still together. Aren’t we?”  
  
“Always the questioner, aren’t you, Jo?” he says, smiling slightly. “Let me tell you this much: I have a slight problem with catching you on the phone with Dawson. It’s not that you talk to him. I can deal with that. Hell, I sometimes text the guy myself, just to see what he’s up to. But the problem I have is that I _caught_ you. You were trying to hide, Jo. Clearly you believe you’re doing something inherently wrong by talking to him. That speaks volumes to me.”  
  
“I don’t—I mean, I don’t, but you make me feel like I shouldn’t be.” The wine uncorks with a slight _pop_ and she hands the bottle to him. He pours two glasses, gives one to her with a slight bow. He means it to be mocking and she flushes pink. “He’s my friend, Pacey. That’s all.”  
  
“So what do you say to him?” he sneers and it is so beautiful and ugly all at the same time. “ ‘Oh I let Pacey fuck me in the ass tonight. Is that ok?’” He pauses, his breaths like burning trees, starved for air. “ I love you with all my fucking heart and soul and stomach and this is what I get? It’s still not enough for you? He’ll never love you like that, Jo.”  
  
“What are you so _scared_ of, Pacey?”  
  
He just stares at her for a moment. “Happiness.”  
  
+  
  
 _The baby was a mistake. But when she lost it, she felt as if she could climb from her own body and it still wouldn’t be enough. It happened on a Thursday morning, just after breakfast. Her belly was full of cornflakes and milk and buttered toast. Her neck remembered his kisses. He was reading in the living room, with his glasses on and the TV blaring. She stared out at the Manhattan skyline and felt contentment of a kind she had used to believe only existed in fairy tales.  
  
But then the snakes came. They were cold. They went up her legs, seized the fetus from her womb, ripped it out, sent the placenta crashing open and she fell to the floor, keening her pain, blood everywhere, a mosaic of blood and when Pacey cried her name, she could only hold her own body, trying to keep it in. Trying to keep everything in.  
  
They set sail two weeks later._  
  
+  
  
He finds her on deck and when she looks up at him, her eyes are salty. “Hi,” she says, hoping that there will be no more harsh words. The stemmed glass of wine is empty and it has left a strange taste in her mouth. A hot acrid tang. She runs her tongue along her teeth and watches him lower himself onto the deck. His long strong body.  
  
“I don’t want to be the cause of any more tears, Jo.”  
  
“Then why do you keep making me cry?”  
  
His eyes are heavy lidded. “I just want to understand.”  
  
“What? That I have a past? We all have pasts, Pacey. That’s what makes us who we are.” She feels as if maybe she has slipped into the territory of pleading desperate _girl_ , but she cannot stop. If she could cleave their bodies together, she would. If she could make the former world fall away, she would. She stares out at the Pacific, the memoryless heat of it. If she could swallow all of the forgetfulness, would she? She imagines nakedness beneath the waves near Papeete, she imagines never calling Dawson again, she imagines flowers withering and dying on her Mother’s grave. She imagines how life would be if she could not remember Jen. But it is all so underwater, so unreachable. A ghost of a sound, echoing. “I love you, Pace.”  
  
“I love you too, Jo.” Curling his arms around her, he draws her against him so slowly and carefully. “When you used to row that boat to Dawson’s—every day, without fail, did you ever picture your future as close to this?”  
  
“No,” she says, simply, honestly. Feels him flinch. But she smiles. “How could I have ever pictured this? I was a small town girl, Witter—how was I supposed to know what awaited me?”  
  
“You were never small town.” He touches her cheek. “That’s the lie you’ve tried hardest to make everyone believe.”  
  
“Maybe,” she says softly, so softly. “I’m not sorry I called him. I just can’t let go like you can.”  
  
“You think I’m good at letting go?”   
  
“You let go of Dawson.”  
  
“There was never any choice. Besides—“ he pauses and considers her for a moment. “Besides, I didn’t particularly want to hold on.”  
  
+  
  
 _Often, right after they set sail and even weeks later, she would sneak up onto the top deck after he had fallen asleep in their bed. Her body smelled. Usually of the salt and the sea, of sperm and sealing wax. Her arms ached from being held above her head. Her jaw throbbed. Her eyes were glassy and shining. Her mouth was full of flesh and sweat and the foam of his semen, her sailor love. She usually wore only a thin nightgown or maybe nothing at all, so her skin pebbled beneath the bright cold ocean air; froze beneath the burnt out stars. She would find a comfortable place beneath the wheel; though the boat was anchored, she liked to feel in control of its destiny should it pull loose from the mooring.  
  
She would then call Dawson.   
  
Or she would call Bessie.  
  
Or her Father.  
  
Or Jack and Doug.  
  
It made her feel as if maybe she wasn’t balancing on a high wire, about to plunge. Maybe trusting Pacey, loving Pacey—trusting herself, wasn’t such a stupid thing after all. They were her anchors; they kept her rooted. As if her legs were stems and they were sunlight, dirt, water. _  
  
+  
  
She is sprawled across the bed when he comes to find her. The boat is slowly rocking her into oblivion. She can hear the stars humming outside. They are anchored close enough to shore for the air to become slightly sultry and so her skin is shiny with sweat. She feels her hair sticking to her forehead, her thighs glowing with heat, her pussy Pacific salty. When he walks in, his eyes go that color they go when he smells her in bed – when he is up against her pussy with his mouth. So she smiles, just so, and bites her lower lip.  
  
“I just wish you didn’t need him.”  
  
“Me too.” She shrugs. “But I do need him – them. All of them. I need—“ she is helpless for a moment, “my past. It keeps me warm at night. As much as I’ve run from it – it keeps me going to know that there are people – as lost as they might be themselves – who care about me.”  
  
“I care about you, Jo.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“So why is it never enough?”  
  
“It always has been. I’m just—scared.” She laughs a little. “Not as much as I used to be though. I guess I’ve just never understood why someone—“ her voice hitches on a breath. “Why someone as brash and as beautiful and as – just, you take life by the balls, Pacey, and you never give up and you don’t get tiny and frightened like me—“  
  
“Me?” he chuckles bitterly. “I’m always afraid, Jo. You made me this way.”  
  
She opens her arms and he sighs, snuggling down until his head is against her heartbeat.  
  
“But you won’t walk away.”  
  
“No,” he agrees, kissing her like it hurts.  
  
 _And it is, in the end, not the dream of all dreams. But she tilts his head back so she may ask, do you love me, and he says yes, and she answers, yes, and that has always been that._  
  
~Finis


End file.
